Something For You To Watch

[Frisbee]

Daytime viewing only

http://www.sysonby.com/beecam/

Frisbee

 

[Xavier 493]

wow man enjoyed that!!!

 

[taff..]

it's like watching an open fire burning

 

[foxden]

Love watching this ,keep going back to it

 

[Beewolf]

The "beecam" hive actually swarmed today, and went in one of my bait hives. For those who missed the action, you can re-live the moment here:

http://www.sysonby.com/downloads/swarm230509.wmv

or at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNT3xp_fAI4

The swarm starts about 30 seconds into the video, and the image goes a bit fuzzy because the computer couldn't keep up with all the action. The queen is actually marked yellow, which unfortunately is the same colour as the OSR pollen that is also around, so she isn't easy to spot.

I am hoping to be able to capture the new queen going out to mate and returning in due course - watch this space!

 

[DulwichGnome]

Great video, can't wait for the next installment!

Mike.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

That is great

 

[Frisbee]

Has it gone into my bait hive waiting down the road?

Frisbee

 

[victor meldrew]

Nice sunny morning.

I notice there's no pollen going in .
A clue that they are queenless !! (waiting for the new boss lady to emerge /get mated and get laying ).


Nice set up , I envy you . my hives are a little too remote for a cheap radio camera to be of any use .

JohnWilkinson

 

[Beewolf]

The really interesting thing is that the swarm left when the most developed queen cell only had a newly hatched larva in it - rather than when the first cell was capped.

What happens in an observation hive may not be a true indicator of behaviour in a full size colony, but this demonstrates that in cases of extreme overcrowding swarms may leave earlier than expected and you may not always be safe leaving a hive 8 days between inspections!

Or maybe mine have just not read any of the right books?

 

[Hombre]

I notice there's no pollen going in .
A clue that they are queenless !! (waiting for the new boss lady to emerge /get mated and get laying ).

John, regarding the lack of pollen going into the hive/nuc:

1. Is this a normal state when a colony becomes queenless?
2. Presumably queenless and without open brood?
3. If queenless but with open brood, would you expect pollen to be coming in?

Reason for asking, in a race between carpentry and bees hampered by bad weather, the bees won and swarmed two hours before I had a second hive ready to do an AS.
As luck would have it, they congregated two gardens away on a low bush. An hour later they departed that location and returned home. The front of the hive was plastered with bees and the air was alive. An hour and a half later they were all tucked up and it was business as usual.

I went through the box with a view to performing an AS, removing all frames with queen cells on, sealed and open, to the new box at the new location a couple of yards away, into which I also put a frame of stores and a frame feeder of syrup. That was late Thursday afternoon.

I back filled each colony with frames of foundation, but was unable to find the queen and have inspected daily since then, gently shaking off bees in the original colony to ensure that there are no missed cells. Pollen has been coming in steadily as late as today, Sunday evening.

In the new colony I haven't shaken the frames, but have blown to break up clumps of bees and no sign of HRH there either. She is marked and in previous inspections before the swarm, was regularly seen on weekly inspections.

Because I couldn't find the queen on Thursday I didn't shake the bees into the new hive and let the foragers wing it back home. Also three frames of brood remained in the original hive, so it probably doesn't count as an AS. So here I am stuck between two stools so to speak.

The plan, such as it is: by Monday/Tuesday any eggs or day/two day old grubs are a sign of the queen being in the appropriate box post event.

If she turns up in the original box without the cells then all well and good.
If she turns up in the new box with the sealed cells, then I will carefully transfer a cell into the original hive between the top bars on Wednesday or Thursday (due to emerge on Friday) and destroy the remaining sealed cells. Either way that would give me a queen right colony and a colony with a virgin queen. I will then keep my eyes open to ensure that further swarming isn't going to be an issue.

Moral of the story: always have spare kit to meet all eventualities.

 

[mikethebee]

HI JOHN (waiting for the new boss lady to emerge /get mated and get laying ). do you know this is what the abbos call the queen (boss lady) there is also a company called Bosslady queens in WA
all the best mike

 

[Beewolf]

Queen nearly ready to emerge!

The bees are "thinning" the wax on the end of one of the queen cells - I hope to get some video of the queen emerging in due course.

In the meantime, but here is some video of the workers on the cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGOExUCO0JY